


too long of a problem, and yet, too short

by andathousandyearsmore



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Actor Steve Rogers, Awesome Sam Wilson, Ceiling Vent Clint Barton, Human Disaster Steve Rogers, M/M, Natasha Romanoff is a Good Bro, POV Sam Wilson, Pining, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Sam Wilson is So Done, Shipper!Steve, Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson Friendship, Steve Rogers Is a Mess, Steve Rogers Likes Making Things Unnecessarily Complicated, oblivious idiots in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 04:59:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17217455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andathousandyearsmore/pseuds/andathousandyearsmore
Summary: In which Steve Rogers has somehow landed himself an acting role as a villain, Sam Wilson can’t comprehend anything until he does, Natasha helps, and Bucky Barnes turns out to be great at understanding Steve.Sam doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the absurdity.He settles for doing neither.





	too long of a problem, and yet, too short

**Author's Note:**

> to a lovely friend who requested I write her a story where Steve somehow landed himself an acting gig with no clue of how it happened
> 
> i’m not sure what happened here, so i guess that’s one thing Steve and i have in common

Sam Wilson has a few regrets in his life, but slapping down those files in front of Natasha and Steve was nowhere on that list. For one, _Black Widow and Captain America_ have allowed him to call them Natasha and Steve. And for another, he gets to be the team’s only sane Avenger while maintaining a real person job. (Sam secretly suspects that Pepper is her own ruthlessly calm brand of crazy to put up with everyone, especially Tony.) That makes him cool, right? He’s got his life decently put together, on paper.

 Or so he thought.

The only regret he has happens to be in the form of one super-serum, self-sacrificing, sassy, stupid soldier who goes by the name of Steven Grant Rogers. The man’s a solid dude, there’s no doubting that. Everyone loves him, and Sam isn’t about to argue with the entire world. 

Then again, the world did not get to see the disaster that Steve Rogers is. Sam has an eternal respect for Bucky Barnes and Sarah Rogers. Even when the former wakes him up in the middle of the night with an air horn and a pound of glitter. He’s starting to wonder what kind of a person Steve’s ma—Steve always calls her his ma—was.

It started just a random fine Thursday afternoon, when Sam was _minding his own business_ and reading over something that Layla, a friend from the VA had sent over. She was a writer who wrote the darkest mystery books he’d ever read, and she constantly sent over drafts for him to plot-proof. It was maybe the sixth time she had sent a draft over, and he still didn’t understand what the hell plot-proofing was, but he was apparently good at it. He didn’t even mind it, since the Tower got a little quiet sometimes—good quiet, definitely good quiet—and he was bored.

A body dropped out of the sky. In the book, and in real life. Well, maybe in real life the body had dropped out of the ceiling, but the sentiment was still the same.

Clint looked like he had been laughing, and now, he looked vaguely inconvenienced.

Sam put his book down. “What the hell, man?”

Clint looked at the ceiling vent he had fallen out of, then at Sam, and then shrugged. “Happens.” He dusted himself, and then left the communal room, like nothing ever happened.

Sam never thought he’d be used to Clint falling out of and living inside of ceiling vents, but here he was.

He sighed. Just as he was about to pick up his book, he heard very distinct footsteps coming straight at him and then looked up.

“Hey Sam,” Steve simply said, sitting down on the sofa right next to him even though there was no one else in the entire room. Sam thought he was going to talk, since there was seating everywhere else, but Steve merely pulled out a book from thin air and started reading. He didn’t seem like he was going to do anything else, so Sam sighed again and went back to his book. Personal space, man. But whatever.

“Steve,” Sam said.

“Yeah?”

“I love you man, but move the hell over. It’s too hot.” 

Steve put his book down and moved at the other end of the sofa, which was a little better. Steve’s shoulders were also built like a truck, so that move ended up being five inches away, but Sam was going to take it. 

“Sam,” Steve said.

“Yeah?” Sam sighed. He put the book down. 

“I need help.”

“ _Yes you do_ ,” Sam wanted to say. But he didn’t, since he was nice, so instead he said, “With?”  

“I think I somehow landed myself in a movie?”

He was not prepared to hear that. At all.

“A movie?” 

“Yeah, the fourth Killers movie? Knife Queen.”

“Knife Queen,” Sam repeated. He wondered if he had been transported into an alternate dimension where his best friend somehow got casted in one of the most high-profile movie/book franchises out there.

“I think… I think I’m playing Rowan Dancy?” 

“Rowan Dancy,” Sam blinked. 

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure he’s the villain?” 

“The villain,” Sam numbly repeated. 

“They just called me and asked me to call them back once I made up my mind. I don’t… they said to talk about it with someone of I was lost.” 

“Just called you.”

“Yes,” Steve said. “Sam.”

“Sam,” Sam said.

“Sam,” Steve loudly repeated. “Are you even listening?”

“Of course I’m listening.” 

“Sam,” Steve said with a concerned expression. “You’ve been repeating everything I’ve been saying for the last three minutes.”

Sam snapped out of it. Oh shit.

“Steve, how the fuck did you land Rowan Dancy in Knife Queen with absolutely no acting experience and no auditions?”

“Steve’s Rowan Dancy in Knife Queen?” Natasha asked, popping out of nowhere. If he didn’t get a heart attack from Steve’s bombshell, he just felt like he suffered through one right now.

“I think?” Steve hesitantly replied, doing that causal confused shrug whenever something went over his head.

Natasha blinked. “You think?”

See, Sam had a kindred spirit in Natasha, who, despite her job, didn’t understand Steve’s tendency to land himself in weird situations any more than he did. This situation, where Steve would be playing the Killers’ version of… their Loki, was up there. _Loki_. _Loki_. _Steve as Loki._

Sam’s brain short-circuited. Killers’ Rowan Dancy and the Avengers’ Loki was the best comparison _ever_ , but Steve as… yeah, what?

“...told me that I was perfect for the role,” Steve was saying. Sam realized that he probably looked like a fish out of water with how much he couldn’t process this news, and shut it. “I don’t know what to do, and _someone_ isn’t helping.” Steve shot a dirty look at Sam.

Natasha’s perfect poker face remained intact, and Sam desperately wanted to know how he could do that. With Steve, that kind of calmness was necessary to deal with shit. Unless he was Bucky Barnes, who dealt with Steve like he was an adorable little puppy and the love of his life. That was another can of worms that Sam was _not going to go into right now._

“Steve,” Natasha said, “Do you want to do it?”

“Does Steve want to do what?” Barnes said, making Sam jump out of his seat and glare at the smirking assassin. He was going to develop an ulcer from all of this.

“Be in the fourth Killers movie, as Rowan Dancy,” Sam filled in, that scare having shocked his brain into working again.

And now that it was working again, Sam didn’t really understand what Steve’s problem was. What was the point of this?

“Steve? As Rowan Dancy?” Barnes repeated incredulously. He looked like Christmas had come early, and that was not something he’d ever see in the former (current?) assassin. See, even he got it.

“Yeah, Buck,” Steve miserably said. “I-I panicked, and I said yes, and now I don’t know what I’m going to do. What were they thinking? What am I thinking?”

(Oh, so Steve’s problem was that he said yes to something he didn’t know that much about. That seemed to be a running theme in Steve’s life. That made more sense than Steve whining about a job offer.)

“Pal, no one knows what’s going on in that empty brain besides the obvious,” Barnes bluntly said. “But at least birdbrain and I know what’s happening.”

And that, was exactly why Sam loved Barnes, despite the pranks and the nicknames. He could deal with most of Steve’s shit. How Barnes didn’t realize that Steve was in just enough love with him as he felt, Sam didn’t know. He didn’t want to know, right now.

And Sam had thought that Minor Disaster #163 had ended on the fine Thursday afternoon it had started, but it really hadn’t.

Nine months later, it had gone like this:

_“Sam,” Steve whined, sitting down next to him on the sofa._

_“Yes?” Sam had hoped that this was not going to be the start of Minor Disaster #412._

_“I apparently need a plus one to the premiere of Knife Queen.”_  

_Oh, Lord. This was Minor Disaster #163 reopened._

_“And you’re whining to me because?”_

_Steve didn’t say anything._

_“Steve,” Sam sighed. “The last time you complained to me, this entire thing could have been avoided if you told me you barely had a clue who Rowan Dancy was.”_

_“I want to take Bucky,” he said._

  _“So take Bucky,” Sam said, not understanding what the problem was. Again._

 _“Sam. Picture Bucky in a suit. And then picture me staring at Bucky in a suit. And then picture everyone in the whole goddamn world knowing I have a thing for Bucky in a suit because of paparazzi and cameras and photographers and the premiere,” Steve complained._  

 _Sam paused. That was a good point. And then he smirked. Maybe then everything would be straightened out between the two pining supersoldiers._  

_“Tony can make the pictures go away, if you want. And sue. Or, even better idea, you can just not stare at his ass secretly and tell him how you feel? Then it’s fine if everyone knows.”_

_“Well…”_

_“Steve. You’re out, he’s out, and half the Internet thinks you two have the best romance story ever. You have too many fake, easily resolvable problems,” Sam said. ”Now go ask, and if you talk to me again without asking, I’m telling him.”_

_“You’re not right though,” Steve said, though he obediently got up and left._

Twenty-six hours later, Sam got two tickets to the premiere, one specifically written out to him, and the other out to Natasha. Steve was a bastard.

Forty-nine hours later, at the premiere, Sam spotted their hands linked together, and smiled.

Steve fucking Rogers’ disasters were a regret that always never seemed so bad at the end.


End file.
